A vehicle battery provides electrical energy to a wide range of onboard systems, including lights, ignition, and environmental controls, plus devices that are plugged in by the driver or passenger, such as GPS, mobile phone, and the like. In an electric or a hybrid electric vehicle, a battery, or more commonly a battery pack, also powers an electric motor that propels the vehicle, either solely or in conjunction with a gas engine. Adverse weather conditions accelerate the drain on the battery. This drain can result in a dead battery and a non-functional vehicle.
Conventional solutions to preventing the excessive battery drain are inadequate. An onboard alternator recharges a vehicle battery once the vehicle is in motion, but is useless if the battery is fully depleted and unable to start the vehicle. An external battery charger, typically plugged into an electrical wall outlet, can recharge a dead battery, yet requires the vehicle to remain stationary for an extended period of time while the vehicle charges. Jumper cables will allow one vehicle to provide sufficient power to a vehicle with a dead battery, but not every driver carries jumper cables.
One approach to preventing a battery from becoming too drained and non-functional is to supplement the battery's energy with solar power, that is, energy of sunlight converted into electrical energy. Arrays of solar cells, also known as panels, have been used to supplement the energy of vehicles' batteries with solar power. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,884,569, issued Feb. 8, 2011, to Ward, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference, describes using a flat-surfaced solar panel to charge a battery pack of a hybrid electric vehicle. A solar panel is mounted outside the vehicle and electrical energy generated by the panel is fed through recharging circuitry into the battery pack to supplement regenerative power supplied by the hybrid drivetrain. The angle of the panel may be adjusted to direct the panel towards the sun. Notwithstanding, the constant movement of the vehicle renders the rate at which the adjustment would have to be performed to optimize the panel's output to be impracticable, particularly as the solar power that the panel generates must be spent on adjusting the position of the panel and consequently subtracted from the efficiency of the system.
Therefore, there is a need for a high-output and highly efficient solar power system for supplementing the energy of a vehicle's battery.